1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and to a method for the filling of a dialyzer with a dialysis liquid and/or for the draining of a dialysis liquid from a dialyzer. The invention further relates to the use of an apparatus for the filling of a dialyzer with a dialysis liquid and/or for the draining of a dialysis liquid from a dialyzer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hemodialyzers are known from the prior art in which the dialysis liquid is not prepared during a treatment, but in which rather the total amount of dialysis liquid required for a dialysis treatment is provided in a tank of the dialyzer prior to the treatment. Dialyzers of this type are also called “batch-type” dialyzers. With a suitable arrangement of the inflow and of the outflow of the tank, it can be used not only for the stocking of the ready-to-use dialysis liquid, but also for the reception of consumed dialysis liquid. More detailed explanations on batch-type dialyzers can be found in the article “Batch-type dialysis machines” in “Replacement of Renal Function by Dialysis”, 5th Edition, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004, 369-371, to which reference is herewith made.
In units of this type of the applicant, two additional units are used for the preparation of the dialysis liquid, one of said units being a water tank for RO water (RO=reverse osmosis) and the other being a unit for the manufacture of the dialysis liquid. In this connection, the two units are in communication with one another such that water is conducted out of the water tank by means of a pump through a chamber of the unit for the manufacture of the dialysis liquid in which the concentrates designed for the treatment are located in solid and/or liquid form. A specific amount of RO water is flushed through this chamber without a fixed mixing ratio being significant during the inflow procedure. The amounts of the concentrate or concentrates and of the water fine-tuned for a treatment mix sufficiently to obtain a homogeneous dialysis liquid in the tank of the dialyzer.
The two named units, that is the RO water tank, on the one hand, and the unit for the manufacture of the dialysis liquid, on the other hand, have a fixed location in a dialysis clinic, i.e. they are arranged in a stationary location. The individual dialyzers are moved to this location so that they can be filled with the dialysis liquid prior to a treatment. The dialyzers filled with dialysis liquid in this manner are then moved to the location of the dialysis treatment. Subsequently to the dialysis treatment, the dialyzers are emptied at the said fixed location and cleaned and disinfected.
A system of this type for the filling and emptying of dialyzers is associated with a comparatively high installation effort so that its procurement cannot be worthwhile for small dialysis centers. Apart from this, the known system has proved to be inflexible to the extent that the units required for the manufacture of the dialysis liquid are arranged at a stationary location.